Rancid-Tea

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Ha! I finally found someone else disgusted by iPods and iTunes. I too am excited for a non-apple mp3 player that is manufactured by someone I have at least a little bit of faith in. Well, as long as it has nothing to do with Windows. Egad. We’ll see if I ever actually end up with some portable music player or continue to haul about my burned cds…

– In actual news, apparently Ethan’s aunt, uncle and cousin will be staying with us tonight, which will probably prove interesting since we really, really, badly need to clean our apartment and declutter it. Also, I have to pick up our produce share tonight (unless Ethan gets home really early or something) and Wren would like me to join her on an errand which will probably be equally horrifying and fun. I’ll let your imaginations play with that one.

– Tomorrow, I actually have to head back to mo-town to pick up (hopefully) the last of our belongings. I may just empty out my car tonight to give myself maximum space for cramming. Unfortunately, some of the items won’t cram, like plants and fish and aquariums. Actually, that’s most of what I need to retrieve. I will only be out for a few hours, so it shouldn’t be too bad. Driving three hours both ways to be somewhere for a short time does kind of suck though. Boo. Thankfully Ethan went and got my oil changed yesterday so at least I won’t have horrible thoughts of my engine giving out on me and dropping out the bottom of my car while on 94.

– Speaking of cars, I have another reason to try and find a better job – a new car. I would really, really like to buy a new car, not because I don’t like my current car, I do. It’s been a very trusty car that has given way more than it could have. On the other hand, it is fourteen years old, and I’m starting to get that nagging feeling that something is due to go horribly wrong. Ethan’s car is now officially a junker after someone took the liberty of letting themself in with a screwdriver and borrowing the cd player. I think they may just forget to return it. In addition to that, the body of his car is disintegrating and its mileage is getting up there. Two quasi-trustable cars makes me too nervous I think. It is in my nature to drive my car until it does just fall apart, and I will likely do just that, but I would like to have enough saved up so that when that happens, we can make a down payment and get a nice, slightly used vehicle that doesn’t suck. Maybe a Prius… We shall see.

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Wow, so I haven’t posted in awhile… I blame that on the fact that I have been rather frantically busy trying to beat down the final details of my wedding which went off (amazingly without a hitch) on Saturday. This is my first post as a married woman. How crazy. As Ethan pointed out being married is not that different from being engaged in our case, but it was still a very exciting and beautiful day. I would make some attempt to sum it up, but most people who read this probably know how most of it went anyway, and I’m at work so the less time I take to do this, the better. I just have a few things to say…

– First, all of the hectic months of planning and stress were worth it. I don’t think the day could have possibly turned out better, and I would like to thank anyone who helped me out with the planning, as I certainly didn’t pull it off by myself, nor could I have.

– Second, if you ever wear undergarments that squish your body so that it looks all slim and smooth under, say, a silk dress, you should plan on not eating very much all day. In fact, your intestines might appreciate if you forego trying to eat. I was lucky enough to save my delicious dinner for later, when I was back in my pajamas, and had room in my torso for food.

– Third, Wren gave the sweetest toast ever, and almost made me cry. I love you Wren, and I’m glad I chose you as my maid of honor.

– Finally, if you have a barefoot wedding in summer, make sure to pour some water over the surface you will be standing on so that whiney boys don’t complain for the rest of the day about how they could barely take the heat. No pain, no gain, right?

– I should get back to work, as I’ve consumed my lunch break. Hopefully my posts will be a bit more frequent now that the biggest day of my life is behind me.

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Well, I had a busy wedding filled weekend. On Friday I went to my parents’ house for my wedding shower, which turned out to be a pleasant gathering with some gifts and food and whatnot.

– On Saturday I decided that perhaps we should wait no longer on the whole wedding band issue and went to a jewelry place with Wren (Ethan was at work) and picked out a set. The apparent downside to my procrastination is that the price of gold has gone up dramatically in recent history, so instead of paying $400/oz as we would have a few months ago, we have to pay $600/oz. Suck. Be that as it may, I consider these rings an investment for life, because I don’t plan on getting married again.

– After ring shopping and grabbing a chilled drink with Wren, I headed back home, so I could go to the pet store for some chinny supplies, then waited a bit for Angie to arrive so I could head back up north with her and Beth in tow for my bachelorette party (which was highly inappropriate and equally enjoyable). Angie and I didn’t get back to my apartment until quite late and pretty much went straight to bed.

– On Sunday Ethan slathered my hair with Henna and we hung around the apartment for a few hours while that set, then we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2. I probably would have really enjoyed the movie except that by then I was thoroughly exhausted, hadn’t had enough sleep and theaters in the twin cities fill up on opening weekends, so we ended up sitting so close to the screen that I couldn’t see the whole thing and got a horrible pain in my neck. I have decided that by and large, twin cities movie theaters suck. I hate having to sit next to someone I don’t know (especially if they reek of perfume or keep checking their cell phone for missed calls every five seconds). I also don’t care for seats that are too close to the screen so that they are rendered useless, while rendering the persons seated there stiff-necked and uncomfortable. Boo I say.

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Read or listen the only pleasant interview with Ann Coulter.

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Read The Nine Defining Characteristics of the Christian Conservative because it’s funny when godless liberals make fun of conservative lunatics.

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It’s a bit after seven on a Saturday morning and I find myself awake. Ugh. Today I have my second fitting for THE DRESS, so… I guess I’ll see it in it’s almost finished form. Then in a week I should be picking it up. Also, I’ll be having a bachelorette party. I suddenly realized that I’ve neglected to invite Jessi and Chris to the reception… Um, hey, Jessi, if you read this, you’re invited, and we made sure there is something vegan to eat, so hopefully you can come… I’ll send an invitation in the mail.

– Almost everything is taken care of, with just a few (semi-major) things left. All dresses are done, my mom dealt with the flowers and the cake. Woot. I don’t like flowers and didn’t want them, but after about a million people were aghast at the fact that I wasn’t planning on flowers, I decided it may just be easier to get them, but I couldn’t pick out something from a category I didn’t appreciate, so sent mother to do it. It seems like a good plan. We still need chairs for the ceremony (otherwise everyone will be standing) and that is Ethan’s responsibility so maybe he can call somewhere and actually reserve them. Speaking of his responsibilities, he finally got the tuxes taken care of, so the tux wearing folks have a week to get their measurements taken. Amazingly, several of them have already. All the bridesmaids have their dresses, too.

– This was my first week working again in almost two months. It was nice to be out of the apartment and earning money, but the job otherwise is rather miserable. I’m doing part of the task of processing reverse mortgages. A reverse mortgage, if you’re curious, is where old people (you have to be at least 62) get paid for their home either as a lump sum, a line of credit, or monthly payments, and then their debt toward the bank goes up. When they sell the house or die, they have to pay it back, or the house becomes the bank’s. Yuck. My job is to take a file, remove several documents (about 60) and make sure they are properly filled out and in the perfect order, then I put them in another file and send them off to their next task, unless something is missing, or not signed or the wrong copy, then it gets sent somewhere to be fixed, maybe. If you ever get a mortgage of any kind, double check all of the signatures yourself, as apparently lenders are bad at signing things. Boo. Hmm, that’s about enough of my blabbing for the moment I think.

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Well, I’m no longer among the unemployed. I’m starting some sort of ‘loan assistant’ position in Eagan on Monday. I’ll be making much less than if I were able to find some sort of computer science related job, but much more than I’m making right now, which is nothing. And it will be enough to pay the bills. Woot.

– I just picked up our second (half) produce share this summer. We had more lettuces, a large bunch of fresh basil (does anyone know how to store basil? It always goes bad so quickly…) some more yummy, sweet radishes, and a giant (larger than bowling ball sized) head of napa cabbage. So far not much has gone to waste, just a few leaves of the various lettuces and one of our heads of pak choi from last week is rather wilty. I think I’ve consumed more greens in this last week than I have in most months, but I think that’s a good thing. I can’t think of any reason not to consume large piles of fresh leafy things. It seems to work well for rabbits and cows anyway. I’m probably much closer to the recommended 2.5 Cups of veggies a day. I’m very excited about the weeks to come – next week broccoli, snow peas, kohlrabi (yum!) and cauliflower should be arriving, in addition to the leafy greens.

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Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but is it not a good thing if you stick to an employment position for more than one year?? I’m currently experiencing difficulty because I have had three jobs in my life, one at a theater that closed after I worked there for three months, one at a Wal-Mart where my parents live for over two years, and one in Morris while I was in college. I had very good reasons for leaving each position and gave ample notice (except with the theater, where the manager gave us notice) when I left. Now I’m being punished because my new place of (possible) employment can’t get a reference of any kind from Wal-Mart, which is not unusual from a place that has over 400 employees and a turnover of over 70%, especially since I worked there over four years ago. Since the theater is closed (and it’s been over five years since I worked there) that leaves me with one professional reference. This new employer requires two. Ha! I can’t say that sticking with a job for several years at a time is a bad thing for an employee to do, but apparently if I had had five jobs in the last five months, I’d have an easier time at getting employed. Boo.

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Ah, how hatred can bring people closer together: Some more anti-coulter fun. I checked to see if IHateAnnCoulter.com was available and sadly that and its .net counterpart are reserved, which basically means you can’t buy them unless you agree to pay whoever currently owns the name. for anyone especially annoyed with this moron, .org, .info, .us and .biz are still available. It would be a great place to compile the stupid things she says and mock her. That might fill up your webspace rather quickly though…

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Very little real news to post… Our bed decided to self destruct about a week ago, with us in it. Being a softside waterbed, it has several tubes full of water (that Ethan and I filled a couple of weeks ago, right after the big move) and one of them decided that twelve years or so of water holding plus three moves was too much for it and it sprung a leak. We became aware of this around one or two in the morning and had to move to the futon. Thankfully we were able to buy a replacement tube the very next morning, but it took a couple of days for the mattress top to dry. Boo. Anyway, that situation seems to be mostly resolved.

– I keep playing phone tag with this woman from the temp agency, which is annoying to say the least. There isn’t too much that’s more inconvenient as not being able to work because someone just doesn’t return your phone call for four hours and happens to catch you during the only time you weren’t home all day. *Frustration*

– In better news we got our first (half) produce share. It included leaf lettuce, spring mix lettuce, baby pac choi, mustard greens (yum), radishes, baby spinach and sage. They are all very fresh and very tasty. The radishes are so sweet and crispy, I kept eating slices I was chopping for salad. I don’t think they’ll last very long. With all those greens, I think we will have quite the array of salads this week. Yum, yum.